George Eliot: A Critical Study of Her Life, Writings and Philosophy

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Sampson Low, Marston, Searle & Rivington, 1883 - Biography & Autobiography - 438 pages
 

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Page 223 - O may I join the choir invisible Of those immortal dead who live again In minds made better by their presence : live In pulses stirred to generosity, In deeds of daring rectitude, in scorn For miserable aims that end with self, In thoughts sublime that pierce the night like stars, And with their mild persistence urge men's search To vaster issues.
Page 388 - Therefore to whom turn I but to thee, the ineffable Name? Builder and maker, thou, of houses not made with hands! What, have fear of change from thee who art ever the same? Doubt that thy power can fill the heart that thy power expands? There shall never be one lost good! What was, shall live as before...
Page 191 - there is more joy in heaven over one sinner that repenteth, than over ninety and nine just persons that need no repentance.
Page 124 - Most wretched men Are cradled into poetry by wrong, They learn in suffering what they teach in song.
Page 225 - May I reach That purest heaven, be to other souls The cup of strength in some great agony, Enkindle generous ardour, feed pure love, Beget the smiles that have no cruelty — Be the sweet presence of a good diffused, And in diffusion ever more intense. So shall I join the choir invisible Whose music is the gladness of the world.
Page 389 - All we have willed or hoped or dreamed of good shall exist; Not its semblance but itself; no beauty, nor good nor power Whose voice has gone forth, but each survives for the melodist When eternity affirms the conception of an hour. The high that proved too high, the heroic for earth too hard...
Page 311 - We can only have the highest happiness, such as goes along with being a great man, by having wide thoughts, and much feeling for the rest of the world as well as ourselves ; and this sort of happiness often brings so much pain with it, that we can only tell it from pain by its being what we would choose before everything else, because our souls see it is good.
Page 393 - That each, who seems a separate whole, Should move his rounds, and fusing all The skirts of self again, should fall Remerging in the general Soul, Is faith as vague as all unsweet: Eternal form shall still divide The eternal soul from all beside; And I shall know him when we meet...
Page 251 - Nay, never falter : no great deed is done By falterers who ask for certainty. No good is certain, but the steadfast mind, The undivided will to seek the good : 'Tis that compels the elements, and wrings A human music from the indifferent air. The greatest gift the hero leaves his race Is to have been a hero.
Page 321 - ... there is no private life which has not been determined by a wider public life, from the time when the primeval milkmaid had to wander with the wanderings of her clan, because the cow jshe milked was one of a herd which had made the pastures bare.

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